Junior dos Santos blasted the hell out of Cain Velasquez in the R1 in 64 seconds, made me look foolish, but awesomely did so. That was so great. That’s the kind of story-book ending UFC & Dana White needed.

A lot of factors in the MMA business are changing, including what’s happening in the media world. Predictably, we are seeing the inevitable outcome of a field that had ‘no there there’ as far as independent cash was concerned. You either take a paycheck from Zuffa & their business partners or you get consolidated & bought out by a big media entity to work for them. Jon Anik left ESPN to work with Zuffa & FX. Replacing Jon at ESPN will be… former WWE commentator Todd Grisham. Larry Pepe is now handling radio duties for UFC events on Fox Sports Radio. SBNation bought out MMA Fighting. On Friday, MMA Junkie announced that USA Today purchased them. Middle Easy has purchased ad space on the trunks of Damarques Johnson. Scott Hastings of Rebellion Media is building his own empire as well.

Dos Santos often mixes things up by going to the body during his combinations, and does so with remarkable efficiency. However, he has a nasty habit of throwing a single jab to the body with very little set-up, which in turn leaves him exposed to counters. Moreover, he generally tends to drop his left hand whenever he throws, making him quite the hittable target. And while the sheer volume with which he throws can often mask those defensive deficiencies, a gifted striker with good counter-punching skills could make him pay dearly.

To hear Velasquez’s teammates at the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose tell it, simply surviving sparring sessions with the high-energy heavyweight is tough enough. That’s why those who are familiar with Velasquez’s pace say it could be the difference-maker in the UFC on FOX bout with Junior dos Santos — especially if the fight makes it to the later rounds.

The Easy Bets: DaMarques Johnson, for starters. He’s never been one for consistency, but he is way too seasoned, and has more ways to win than Clay Harvison, who got absolutely dominated by Seth Baczynski in his last outing. Also, “Kid” Yamamoto is going to go apeshit on Darren Uyenoyama, who we’re not sure is ready for UFC level competition to begin with.

For years, the haughty members of mainstream media turned up their noses at the UFC. So the UFC circumvented them: They credentialed bloggers when nobody else would. They created a community around a fanbase that wanted something different, and packaged it around their likes. Now, they’re working for the same people who once wrote them off as a barbaric fringe sport. Selling Out 101. But you can’t hate. Every organization that rises up eventually does this. It’s not a sign of being weak or ditching your ideals; it’s a signifier of wanting continuing success. Every thriving enterprise has to change and adapt as it gets bigger, and this is no exception.

This is where the fight scene is now in Japan. UFC may have a free roll with a sold show at Saitama Super Arena, but Frankie Edgar vs. Clay Guida or Ben Henderson ain’t going to draw unless they’re fighting an Ologun in the cage.

Being a set as large as it is, no conventional DVD box could hold this many discs and not look like a concrete brick. Instead of going with the typical boxed set approach, Anchor Bay has opted for a more creative means of holding the discs. Measuring 11 3/4 inches long and 7 3/4 inches wide, the discs are held in a long rectangular book that holds two discs per each side of a page. It comes in a sleeve with the design you see above to keep the book safe, but even without the extra protection, this structure is sturdy and built to last. Anchor Bay has gone out of their way with their past UFC DVD releases to be creative with their packaging, but this one takes the cake. Rather than adding a bulky stack of DVDs to your collection, you instead have a nice centerpiece on your bookshelf, which saves space and just looks cool.

Eight events since the beginning of September and now Bellator’s fifth season winds down. Thus far, we’ve seen a featherweight champ try to gain entry into the bantamweight mix and get smoked like a Cuban cigar, a light-heavyweight champ lose some of his luster, and enough heavyweight leather thrown around to kill a yeti. So, while the UFC on FOX prelims are playing out on whatever Internet outlet Dana White has lined up for the evening (MySpace? Tumblr? The Knot.com?), Bellator 57 will be giving us the finals of the current welterweight tournament and middleweight tournament. Who will earn a shot at 170-pound champ Ben Askren and be the next person to be planked upon? Who will be the next dude to be beaten stupid by champ Hector Lombard? I don’t know, but here’s a preview of the action.

I think 35% is on the high end of ‘industry standard’ for European kickboxing gyms. American MMA gyms are WAY cheaper than the European Kickboxing standard, and that is what Overeem has likely just figured out. He could have been training at ATT and paying 20% or paying his own training expenses and hiring a manager for 10%.

The 35% is a good deal for young guys just starting out, because they aren’t making any money anyway. Problem is, a guy like Alistair who is pulling down seven digits is getting screwed. He would be better off an agent 10% to handle his contract negotiations and endorsements and pay for his training himself.

“The site’s editor-in-chief, Dann Stupp, and its entire editorial staff, including award-winning lead staff reporter John Morgan, will remain in place and will report to Dave Morgan, the USA TODAY Sports Media Group’s senior vice president of content and editor-in-chief.”

That’s the key passage from the USA Today press release. Dave Morgan is the former boss at Yahoo Sports, which was the first major mainstream site to go all out on MMA coverage. He grasped that MMA delivered a huge audience before his peers at other sites did. This is very good news for MMA Junkie.

I think they did two of these this year and it seems to sum up the kakutougi scene in a nutshell. It’s both sad (because of all the fighters involved having fallen to this as the height of their exposure) and really awesome. And yes Bobby Ologun and Minowa Man were involved, although they were on opposite sides of the bracket.

5 minutes into the UFC on FUEL TV broadcast, and I’m already impressed. This is professional. It’s not corney, as sometimes can be the case with past MMA coverage.

I think that FUEL TV takes away from the internet MMA coverage for some fans. I know it will for me. I used to watch the weigh-ins online. Now I can watch them on TV. Same with fighter interviews and analysis.

As a long time (1990’s), harcore MMA fan, I couldn’t be happier. This feels like a professional sport…. FINALLY!!

Watched the Deportes card in the background. Saw a bunch of little man fights with a lot of scrubs I barely cared about, but all those fights got finished so I’m sure they’re all 5 STAR CLASSICS to someone. Henderson/Guida was awesome stuff. Henderson clearly won all three rounds in my book.

Thank God for Ben Henderson. Guida is such an awkward fucking guy to fight. He has no aspirations on the feet other than to be out of striking range and either take his opponent down or to engage in wall n stall. There are a lot of people who were chanting Guida during that fight; I am an optimist and thus assume they were all drunk and were cheering for Guida ironically.

Which is a good thing. You can see a lot of things Fox wanted being done. I’m glad they forced the issue. Its a lot better for us as fans than to just hand over blank checks to the UFC and get the same dated shit.

Well, that was fast. Congrats to Dos Santos on winning the strap. Not much of a fight though – basically one punch and we’re heading back to commercial. I know there’s 17 minutes left in the broadcast, but honestly they filled up the time well. With bouts that would go past the 65 second mark, I wouldn’t be at all shocked to see a title fight be the sole focus of a 90 minute program.

So glad to see that stupid Gladiator intro and the nu-metal get axed. Still wish they’d get rid of it for PPV promos and stuff, but whatever.

It was good television. Always nice to see a fight last longer then a minute…. But a 1 minute fight with a good KO is always better then a 25 minute snoozefest. That would really hurt the UFC. This didn’t….

I told you all he was going to beat him. Cain has the same chin he had against Kongo. I realize that Cain got hit on the ear, but it was obvious even before that punch that he was going to knock him out. The ease with which he landed a straight right to the jaw and to the body made it obvious that Cain was going to sleep.

I would like to see J2S box. I don’t think there are many people on Earth who could beat him in that sport either.

I’m really not sure Lesnar now has a solid chance of becoming champion again. If the Velazquez loss proved anything, Lesnar cannot take a heavy punch, and coming in we pretty much know Dos Santos hits harder than Cain, even BEFORE tonight’s fight. I really don’t see how Lesnar will be able to take one of Dos Santos’s punches. (and for the record, I think Lesnar will beat Overeem)

I’d love to see Dos Santos KTFO Brock, but it won’t happen. Brock is immediately going to go for takedowns. The first second of the Cain fight had Brock shooting in. And Dos Santos doesn’t have Cain’s wrestling ability to do anything about it. Dos Santos is only going to win if he lands a monster shot before Lesnar gets a hold of him. I’d give that less than 5% chance of happening.

Another interesting takeaway from the show for hardcores — Kid Yamamoto got beat soundly (again). That is bad for UFC Japan, but then again with the rumors of Frankie Edgar vs. Ben Henderson as the main at SSA, UFC isn’t treating that card as one in which they’re catering to the natives anyways.

Darren was a ridiculous underdog going into that fight and everyone said he was going to get eviscerated because it was a style mismatch.

Dana was pissed. He also buried Cain and Junior (to a lesser extent) on air. You think that’s a mistake Zach?

Part of that was the fan in him talking and part of it was the promoter in him talking.

As a promoter, he spent a lot of time pushing Cain Velasquez ridiculously as ‘the first Mexican heavyweight champion’ and he felt like it was getting some traction in Anaheim. So, for JDS to blow that all up was something that confounded him. The other thing is that he thought the fight was going to play out like I thought it would, which is Cain wearing down JDS for a few and then going for the finish or decision.

I understand why he did it, it’s just Dana being Dana. But it still made me embarrassed for the UFC. Sports commissioners don’t do that. Sellig didn’t start yelling at Joe Buck about what the Rangers should have done to the Cardinals because he’s mad they lost since Texas as a bigger state could have made MLB more money than Missouri.

If FOX has control, they need to protect Dana from himself and bring in somebody neutral post-fight. Imagine what he would have done if UFC 121 was on FOX, he would have been crying on Curt Menefe’s shoulder about all the money Brock just lost him.